Greg Sandow

Music critic and composer Greg Sandow, born and raised in New York City, works as a music critic for The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is the pop music critic for The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and senior music editor for Entertainment Weekly. He is also a speaker, writer, and consultant on the future of classical music. He has had consultancies and worked on special projects and presentations for the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, London Symphony, Yale School of Music, and other institutions as well as in the Netherlands, Australia, and Tunisia.

Sandow writes a widely read ArtsJournal blog on the future of classical music. He composed four successful operas in the 1970s and ’80s, and revived his composing with performances by the Fine Arts Quartet, South Dakota Symphony, and St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble. Sandow is artist in residence at the U. of Maryland, where he helps students at the school of music find an audience their own age. At Bowling Green and Florida State universities, he has had joint residencies with Anne Midgette, his wife and chief classical music critic for The Washington Post.

Sandow received his B.A. from Harvard with a major in political science. He attended the Yale School of Music and received an M.M. in composition. As a specialist in classical music’s future, he’s spoken on the subject in the U.S. and abroad and teaches about it at Juilliard. He writes a widely read and influential ArtsJournal blog on the future of classical music and is writing a book on the subject to be titled Rebirth. He serves on the advisory committee for the revolutionary new curriculum at the DePauw School of Music. In 2016, he revived his career with a concert of his work at the Strathmore Performing Arts Center. He lives in Washington, D.C.